• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Politics / America / Mississippi Man! And He Sticks the Landing!!!!

Mississippi Man! And He Sticks the Landing!!!!

by Adam L Silverman|  June 22, 201810:32 pm| 173 Comments

This post is in: America, Crazification Factor, Open Threads, Popular Culture, Fuck Yeah!, Not Normal

FacebookTweetEmail

6.8, 6.8, 3.2 from the Bulgarian judge – they’ve been very tough this year…

Car caught on camera going airborne and flying into a Mississippi gas station. Luckily, the driver was able to walk away with minor injuries. https://t.co/dN1O7c8jJo pic.twitter.com/oCko7Yf5lQ

— ABC News (@ABC) June 22, 2018

Stay alert, stay alive!

Open thread.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Friday Night Open Thread (Shut Up I Know There is Already One)
Next Post: Saturday Morning Open Thread: Sorrows of the Young Minions »

Reader Interactions

173Comments

  1. 1.

    dr. bloor

    June 22, 2018 at 10:40 pm

    I have mixed feelings about the NHTSA getting in the way of natural selection with this sort of thing.

  2. 2.

    Mandarama

    June 22, 2018 at 10:40 pm

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that my home state is never in the news for something *good*.

  3. 3.

    BruceFromOhio

    June 22, 2018 at 10:42 pm

    Man, I’ve been snakey about getting up to the pump for a quick fill up, but that just over the top.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 10:42 pm

    @Mandarama: Well the driver didn’t barrel through the pump and blow everything up. So take your victories where you can get them.

  5. 5.

    Mandarama

    June 22, 2018 at 10:45 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: That driver’ll be the pride of Flowood here directly.

  6. 6.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 10:47 pm

    @BruceFromOhio: When your low fuel light is on and you have a low fuel red alert klaxon going off inside your vehicle…

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    June 22, 2018 at 10:47 pm

    Damn…David Simon is back on twitter after having his account suspended!

    And welp…this is a rant worth of John Cole himsellf!

    @AoDespair
    Follow Follow @AoDespair
    More
    1) @jack, @twitter, @TwitterSupport: Still waiting for a cogent explanation of why the common rhetoric of telling assholes to drop dead is prohibited on your shithole platform. But allowing said assholes to slander women who have had children kidnapped is fine by you…

    7:59 PM – 22 Jun 2018
    https://twitter.com/AoDespair/status/1010326429568028672

    Seriously, do yourselves a favor and read the ENTIRE thread…because it is as righteous a rant as you will ever see…LOL

  8. 8.

    The Dangerman

    June 22, 2018 at 10:48 pm

    Stuck the landing but Progressive wants their snapshot back from him ASAP (though to only take a facade off the far pump is really pretty amazing).

  9. 9.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    June 22, 2018 at 10:50 pm

    Was just looking at a phot of Donny Dollhands event with the “Angel Families” and one person was holding up a sign about his daughter (I think) having been killed by an illegal alien drunk driver. I remember seeing a MAD billboard once and it had a stat on it saying 16K people a year were killed by drunk drivers. However if you look at the total number of vehicular fatalities (64K if I remember) I always thought “so you’ve got a much better chance of being killed by a SOBER driver then” It would be fun for someone with time on their hands to run the numbers of the percentage of drunk driving fatalities committed by illegal aliens compared to those committed by US citizens. I know this is not an exact science and all that but seeing as the Admin released all sorts of facts and figures today to prove that illegal aliens were MURDERERS etc., it was nice to see someone tweet out a graph showing that on average illegal aliens commit far fewer crimes than citizens. Hmmmmmm I wonder why that is?

  10. 10.

    jl

    June 22, 2018 at 10:52 pm

    Sounds like some faint, and faintly ZZ Top boogie in the background. Fitting.

  11. 11.

    pat

    June 22, 2018 at 10:53 pm

    Umm, I believe that was a woman driver. Who was arrested for driving under the influence. But wow was that a take off and landing!

  12. 12.

    Platonailedit

    June 22, 2018 at 10:57 pm

    Come on, no one is that desperate for gas.

  13. 13.

    lamh36

    June 22, 2018 at 10:59 pm

    Ok…who’s paying attention to this Tom Arnold stuff going on?

    Explain it to me please?

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:00 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt: It would be almost impossible as the FBI doesn’t break out the numbers. The numbers the President used today, 68,000 Americans killed – one way or another – since 9/11 is actually a number that Congressman Steve King of Iowa simply made up in 2005 because he’s bad at math and doesn’t understand percentages. Or logic.

    Today Trump presented as fact a number so wildly wrong that even he found it hard to believe when he first heard it. https://t.co/hOTuYKVxwI

    — Philip Bump (@pbump) June 22, 2018

  15. 15.

    Mary G

    June 22, 2018 at 11:01 pm

    Well, San Diego Union-Tribune says somebody leaked a plan ordering the Navy to put up tents for 47,000 on Camp Pendleton a couple miles south of my house. SDUT called the base and was told they knew nothing about it.

    The facility at Camp Pendleton would be one of multiple temporary detention centers designated to house immigrants making their way into the United States.

    According to an internal memo obtained by Time magazine, the U.S. Navy has been directed to establish “temporary and austere” encampments on military installations in Alabama, Arizona and California that each could host tens of thousands of detainees.

    “Temporary” and “austere” means concentration camps. It’s better weather here than in Arizona and Texas, but sticking 47,000 people into tents is a logistical nightmare. Where will they even get the water?

    Speaking of the military and water, New Republic has this story

    “The Military Drinking-Water Crisis the White House Tried to Hide
    A new, previously suppressed report has grave implications for service members, veterans, and their families.”

    The Trump administration feared it would be a “public relations nightmare”: a major federal study that concluded contaminated groundwater across the country, especially near military bases, was more toxic than the government realized. Political aides to President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt pressured the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry against releasing the results.

    “The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,” an unidentified White House aide wrote, according to Politico. “The impact to EPA and [the Defense Department] is going to be extremely painful. We cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.” The study was not released.

    That is, until Wednesday. Amid a media firestorm about the administration’s immigration policy, the ATSDR—a division of the Department of Health and Human Services—quietly published its 852-page review

    Good Dog, they are stupid and evil.

  16. 16.

    randy khan

    June 22, 2018 at 11:03 pm

    Seat belts, air bags, unibody construction, crumple zones, reinforced roof pillars (probably the wrong term, but you know what I mean): They’re all good things.

    And all of them standard nowadays because of government safety standards.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:04 pm

    @lamh36: Arnold’s been on a tear for months trying to get outtakes from the Apprentice, and any other show the President may have made a guest appearance on, so he can broadcast them and demonstrate what he saw when he visited the set of the Apprentice – the President being racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, etc. Apparently he’s hooked up with VICE and HBO to do this show documenting his attempt to get the tapes. He’s now interviewed both Felix Sater and Michael Cohen. And tweeted pictures of himself with both. He claims that Cohen has all the dirt on the President and will give it to the Feds. Whether that is true or not, who knows. There’s a lot of speculation that this was Cohen trying to send a message to the President that he’s pissed. That he feels abandoned and neglected and poorly used. And that the window is closing for the President to expect him to keep his mouth shut.

    I can tell you that I saw his interview on Nicole Wallace’s show this afternoon – haven’t gotten to O’Donnell yet. He may have been clean and sober – alcohol and drugs – for a while now, but based on that interview you’d not be crazy to wonder if he was on the Peruvian marching powder.

  18. 18.

    Mary G

    June 22, 2018 at 11:09 pm

    @lamh36: He’s as nuts as his ex-wife. Has sort of claimed to have tapes from “Celebrity Apprentice” (with Twitler being all racist like he is in private) since 2015 when the campaign was announced, but never produced them. Said he spent the weekend with Michael Cohen who said he was going to tell all to Mueller. Cohen tweeted that he ran into him in a lobby somewhere and did a selfie when Tom asked and said goodbye.

    Looks like attention-grabbing before his next show comes out, nothing more.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:10 pm

    @Mary G: My estimation of this is that the President and his advisors think that if they push this off on the military everyone will shut up because of the high regard that the military is held within US society.

    I expect that it will not do so and that the military will be left holding the bag on this. The President, AG Sessions, Stephen Miller, Secretary Nielsen, and Secretary Azar certainly don’t intend to be holding the hot potato.

    This is also why Mattis was so pushy about wanting input into who the Service Secretaries where going to be. He got some input, but he didn’t get to pick them. The Secretary of the Navy was a Marine aviator who separated at the rank of captain (O3) and then went on to a career in Wall Street.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:11 pm

    This pretty sums up the US at this moment in time:

    Emergency officials say a large section of a bourbon storage warehouse has collapsed at a distillery in Kentucky. https://t.co/BN9JHZjFVC

    — The Associated Press (@AP) June 22, 2018

  21. 21.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    June 22, 2018 at 11:11 pm

    @lamh36: Yes! I posted a link to it in the previous thread. It is a thing of beauty. Did you read all of it?

    Tom Arnold had to have been high during that interview. He even said p***y and the interview was LIVE.

  22. 22.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    June 22, 2018 at 11:14 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: hhhhhmmmmmmmm … very convenient with new tariffs about to kick in.

  23. 23.

    The Dangerman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:15 pm

    @Mary G:

    …on Camp Pendleton…

    Oh, sure, there’s a nice quiet base that doesn’t have anything else to do (Pendleton is always, ALWAYS hopping).

    Shit, why not San Clemente island (if memory serves, it’s mostly one big live fire range)?

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:15 pm

    @The Ancient Randonneur: Yep.

  25. 25.

    James E Powell

    June 22, 2018 at 11:15 pm

    @randy khan:

    Government never gets credit for doing good things

  26. 26.

    Barbara

    June 22, 2018 at 11:17 pm

    @randy khan: Yes, but they don’t help pedestrians who happen to be in the way. The number of pedestrian casualties has risen significantly over the last several decades.

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:18 pm

    Well this doesn’t inspire confidence:

    What type of government doesn't allow THE RED CROSS in? pic.twitter.com/OhWMsKpbjN

    — ?a stubborn flame? (@sandee0802) June 22, 2018

  28. 28.

    SRW1

    June 22, 2018 at 11:21 pm

    Dude has to work on his curve sliding, but what is really atrocious is his parking technique.

  29. 29.

    Doug R

    June 22, 2018 at 11:22 pm

    Who says there’s no flying cars?

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    June 22, 2018 at 11:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The Red Cross was allowed to inspect Guantanamo in 2004 and has continued to make at least annual inspections, IIRC.

    Whatever is going on inside those baby jails, it’s bad.

  31. 31.

    jl

    June 22, 2018 at 11:26 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Isn’t Mattis the Service Secretaries’ boss. He can tell them to forget it, or not?

    I agree that Mattis has been an island of common sense in Trumpsterland. He advised against breaking nuke treaty with Iran, but that was outside his control He does nave control over some things, I read he’s been fighting against the idea of a Trumpstar Trooper Space Force, but he seems to have lost, unless he can disguise something useful as what Trump ordered and bullshit him into believing it. I cannot imagine he would want the bother of undocumented immigrant and asylum seeker concentration camps. And those are under his control. Can’t he quietly say ‘My AO will not be assed!”

  32. 32.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    June 22, 2018 at 11:27 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s very disturbing. Senator Kamala Harris and 3-4 Congresspersons (all Dems, of course) have used the words ‘crimes against humanity’ to describe children being ripped away from their parents.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:28 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Yep.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    June 22, 2018 at 11:31 pm

    Mayhaps it’s a form of retro street theater, gone wild.

  35. 35.

    jl

    June 22, 2018 at 11:31 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Having to explain why you are in custody of minors with no documentation or process, and have no clue who they are, where they come from, or where they might go next, might be, very delicately put, a more than minor legal nuisance in the future.

    Edit: they sense that this contract, no matter how much cash right now, may not develop necessarily to their advantage.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    June 22, 2018 at 11:32 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:
    For the benefit of the tweeter:
    If the US Government lets the American Red Cross in to help detained immigrants, detained immigrants will get help. This is the outcome the Trump Adminisrtration wants to prevent. As we have seen before, it’s that type of govermnent.

  37. 37.

    Calouste

    June 22, 2018 at 11:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Let’s see… the Nazis allowed the Red Cross into PoW camps, but not into concentration camps. We might have a clue there.

  38. 38.

    Amir Khalid

    June 22, 2018 at 11:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:
    It is not my habit to partake of bourbon, but I can see how those who do would consider this a tragedy.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:38 pm

    @jl: The Service secretaries report up to Mattis through the Deputy Secretary of Defense. That said, given the way this White House works, who knows if this was tasked properly. As in the DOD LNO at the White House was given a Warning Order that this was coming. Then the Fragmentary Order was sent to the DOD J3/Directorate of Operations. From there a quick analysis was done and it was determined that right now the Navy of the four Services fully within DOD had the slack to handle this and DOD J3 tasked Navy J3. The Navy J3 then tasked it out appropriately to the Navy equivalent of Installation Command. That’s how it should have worked. With this White House, who knows. A political appointee that was held over from one of the landing teams during the transition – essentially a zampolit (placing these everywhere was a Giuliani recommendation) – was called by someone at the White House and he or she just tasked it out.

    Now all of the above said, during periods of high levels of undocumented entries during both the Bush 43 and the Obama administrations, HHS asked DOD to assist by temporarily housing detained undocumented entries awaiting processing on some bases. So this is not unheard of or unprecedented. The difference this time is: 1) The deliberate separation of children from families and 2) despite the White House, DOJ and DHS leadership (Sessions and then Kelly followed by Nielsen) planning to do this as a policy change for well over a year, there appears to have been very little actual tactical/operational level planning on how to do any of this stuff, which leaves to 3) failures to properly track children, making it impossible to reunite them with their parents, as well as to have enough facilities ready, properly staffed, etc, etc.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    June 22, 2018 at 11:38 pm

    Presumably most of the kids are Catholic. Are Sunday services being held? If so, an enterprising journalist ought to be able to track down a clergyman or two for an interview.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:39 pm

    @The Ancient Randonneur: UN officials have begun floating the terms torture and crimes against humanity. That’ll just be taken as a sign by the President, the AG, Stephen Miller, Bolton, and some others that they’re doing the right thing.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:41 pm

    @jl: Yep.

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:42 pm

    @jl: @Mnemosyne: Just a couple of RINOs!!!

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:43 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Also yep.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:44 pm

    @Calouste: Theresienstadt.

    ETA: It started as a ghetto and evolved into a concentration camp.

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:46 pm

    @NotMax: An ecumenical groups of clergy went to Texas to try to visit the facilities yesterday. Al Sharpton was part of it, but it included a Catholic monsignor and a rabbi. From what Sharpton said on MSNBC this afternoon, they were not allowed access even though they came to specifically minister to any children that wanted it. He was a bit pissed and contrasted this with Sessions abuse of scripture.

  47. 47.

    jl

    June 22, 2018 at 11:47 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: OK, I guess you know this stuff, so I’ll take your word for it.

    But this?
    ” 2) despite the White House, DOJ and DHS leadership (Sessions and then Kelly followed by Nielsen) planning to do this as a policy change for well over a year, there appears to have been very little actual tactical/operational level planning on how to do any of this stuff,”

    Over a year? That is very hard to believe. Someone tell me that ALS is pulling my leg here.

  48. 48.

    jl

    June 22, 2018 at 11:49 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Losers. Sad. Messes. Not top people at all.

    Edit: Deep State commies.
    I’ll think of more ugly names later.

    But, that clip would make a great front page post.
    Maybe along with some history of how Trumpster immigration BS worked out for the GOP in California.
    Thanks very much for that clip.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    June 22, 2018 at 11:50 pm

    @jl

    Kelly floated this while he headed up DHS, before he was at the White House.

  50. 50.

    jl

    June 22, 2018 at 11:52 pm

    @NotMax: Kelly is as dumb and incompetent as Trump, then. He just knows how to act the serious daddy part in public.

  51. 51.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:53 pm

    @jl: Nope. Kelly, when he was still DHS secretary, stated he was considering this on one of the Sunday shows in March 2017. Chris Hayes got his hands on a memo, as did then Reuters and now NBC/MSNBC legal reporter Julia Ainsley, in March 2017 from the White House asking for input on making this policy change. Here’s the clip of Kelly:

    Here’s the Ainsley stuff:

    It's not true that parent child separation is a by-product of law enforcement. This was part of the Trump admin plan since day 14 and designed to deter families seeking asylumhttps://t.co/m1biwsSPnU

    — Julia E. Ainsley (@JuliaEAinsley) June 18, 2018

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:54 pm

    @jl: I intend to front page it tomorrow. I may, in fact front page it every day for a while.

  53. 53.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 22, 2018 at 11:56 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: No problem, Adam. Trump thinks(I use that term loosely) one of his predecessors served in office for 16 years(he’s said it 3 times). Yes, FDR was elected 4 times but only served 12 and change.

  54. 54.

    Amir Khalid

    June 22, 2018 at 11:58 pm

    @jl:
    I don’t disagree at all, but what does it say about the USMC that Kelly retired holding its highest officer rank?

  55. 55.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 22, 2018 at 11:59 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m aware. We’re all aware. It’s like being stuck in a reality that is a reverse panopticon. All of us inmates are all forced to watch the President.

  56. 56.

    B.B.A.

    June 23, 2018 at 12:03 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    If the US Government lets the American Red Cross in to help detained immigrants, detained immigrants will get help.

    I don’t know about that. The American Red Cross is mostly about photo opportunities and soliciting donations, making sure one of their trucks is positioned behind any press conference at a natural disaster and the like. Actual aid is incidental to marketing.

    If it were a foreign Red Cross/Red Crescent, or Doctors Without Borders, I might be a little less cynical.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:06 am

    @Amir Khalid: I have a very close friend who has known Kelly for over 20 years. Served with him. He doesn’t want to talk about it as it pains him to see him do and say these things. Never even suspected that this was what he might be like. Isn’t sure if it’s some strange response to his son’s death in combat. Or that he was always a bigot and was just able to keep it closeted.

    There are, unfortunately, some people who are very good at war, that are not good at anything else. Or who have just seen far too much war and, as a result, lose their way when their wars end. Being a good Marine, even a good Marine general officer, doesn’t necessarily mean that he is, himself, a good person.

  58. 58.

    debbie

    June 23, 2018 at 12:07 am

    I suppose her inebriation kept the woman loose like a rag doll, which is why she was able to stagger away.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:07 am

    @B.B.A.: International Committee of the Red Cross is what you want. But the American Red Cross is, for all its faults, the US affiliate.

    Fun fact: one of the aikido dojos I trained at in Brussels was in the basement of the International Red Cross building. My senseis taught there twice a week. Twice a week at a school in their gym. And once a week (on the weekend) at a sports hall. Think YMCA type of thing.

  60. 60.

    rikyrah

    June 23, 2018 at 12:08 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    Kelly ain’t shyt ?

  61. 61.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 12:09 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Two fucking commies.

    ETA:

    Deep State commies.

    Ah crap, i’m starting to sound like jl.

  62. 62.

    Amir Khalid

    June 23, 2018 at 12:10 am

    @B.B.A.:
    There’s always a chance that someone at the American Red Cross got smote with the competence stick, and might accomplish some good. I guess Trump’s people didn’t want to take that chance.

  63. 63.

    Mary G

    June 23, 2018 at 12:12 am

    @Adam L Silverman: If they try to blame their mess in the military, won’t that cut into his base? He’s already got the American Legion mad as hell because they plan to raise premiums, copays and deductibles of TriCare coverage and eliminate some grandfathered provisions.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    June 23, 2018 at 12:12 am

    @danmericaCNN
    Follow Follow @danmericaCNN
    More Dan Merica Retweeted Dan Merica
    A Trump supporting soybean farmer whose farm has lost ≈ $250k in value due to tariffs: “This isn’t just numbers on a sheet or percentage of trade or dollar value. This is multi-generational American families, your base, that you are now squarely putting into financial peril.”

    It would be funny if after all the lies and corruption and mean-spirited, nasty actions what brought the Trumpsters down was tariffs- taxes.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    June 23, 2018 at 12:13 am

    @jl:
    He’s not.
    None of the people that drumpf can get to work for him have capacity, intelligence, experience, basic knowledge of government, etc, etc to get this done. They tell some down the ladder to just do it and that person has no authority, no budget, no backing to do it right. It is, as was known before the asshole was sworn in that this entire maladministration would be, to put it politely as possible a massive clusterfuck, a cock up of epic proportions. And as it turns out that was a massively understated expectation.

  66. 66.

    debbie

    June 23, 2018 at 12:16 am

    @Kay:

    What do you think Trump’s plan was? Did he think countries wouldn’t retaliate with their own tariffs? Did he think countries would cower before him and fold like cheap suits and do whatever he demanded they do? I honestly can’t figure out his strategy.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    June 23, 2018 at 12:17 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I said earlier today that I think the visible lack of planning is deliberate. They know that the Nazis were able to be convicted of crimes against humanity because they left a paper trail, so the Trumpistas decided to not write anything down to give themselves plausible deniability later on.

    We didn’t mean to kill all those people — we were just incompetent! LOL!

    I wish I were joking, but I really think that’s what’s going on.

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:17 am

    @Mary G: Who knows? It is unclear to tell what of this mess is actually thought out, though rooted in really bad ideology and how much is just reaction. Certainly stuff like what Pruitt is doing at EPA and Mulvaney at OMB and CFPB and Zinke at Interior and Pai at FCC and Verma at CMMS and the trade war is planned and rooted in really bad ideology. But a lot of stuff seems to be knee jerk responses when the planned, but rooted in really bad ideology turns out badly as everyone who wasn’t delusional predicted.

    It’s like the plan Mulvaney just rolled out to basically privatize a significant amount of the Federal government and consolidate the rest. There is definitely redundancy, but that’s not what they’re after resolving here. They just want to remake the US along the governing principals of the Confederacy. Remember, the Confederate constitution had no promote the general welfare clause. It was the one clause they purposefully chose not to copy from the US constitution. But the fallout on this is going to be 100s of thousands of people who work for the Federal government directly placed out of work. Because of cuts to R&D and research budgets it will put millions more out of work and seriously damage future American economic prospects because the private sector, by and large, does not and will not invest in that type of primary, expensive, but often not immediately profitable R&D. While I doubt that almost any of this will get through Congress, for a variety of reasons, if it did, it would completely destroy the US economy in very short order. Like leave the Great Recession in the mirror and proceed directly to full on depression.

  69. 69.

    Ruckus

    June 23, 2018 at 12:18 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    If he followed orders and did his assigned tasks to the satisfaction of his higher ups and peers, he did his duty. He’s not supposed to disgrace his rank and command and he may not have done that. And as long as he did his political views were just that. But once he’s out he’s free to be as big a fucking jackass as his tiny little brain desires. Which seems to be one outsized massive jackass.

  70. 70.

    Platonailedit

    June 23, 2018 at 12:20 am

    @debbie: Dime on the dollar. That has been the way in traitorous thug’s whole life. Not gonna happen with nation states.

  71. 71.

    jl

    June 23, 2018 at 12:21 am

    OK, then I stand corrected. Thanks to commenters.
    If Adam is going to post stuff, and BJ is going go all egg heady on this, I’ll post a few links to things I’ve found recently on the history of Hispanic immigration to the US.
    I’ve been on record, as a Native Son of he Golden West, that I think something close to open borders with regard to Hispanic immigration in the SW is no big deal. Since as a practical matter, that is what the US had for almost a century after we took the land.
    In the past, I was going on what oldsters in my family told us, that no one ever cared much about it until recently, and people came and went as they saw fit, way back in the day. those oldsters are all passed on now, so I’ve been looking into it.

    So,here is an introduction with an interesting graph.
    Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies, Spring 2009
    https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/immigration-latino-migration-and-us-foreign-policy

    I doubted the statement that there were no limits at all until mid-twentieth century, but then I found…

  72. 72.

    Mnemosyne

    June 23, 2018 at 12:22 am

    @debbie:

    Did he think countries would cower before him and fold like cheap suits and do whatever he demanded they do?

    That’s exactly what he thought would happen. He was able to get people to cower for him just as the head of the penny-ante Trump Organization, so he thought that being the Leader Of The Free World would be like that, only better. Canada and China would fold like the contractors he bankrupted in Jersey.

  73. 73.

    Peale

    June 23, 2018 at 12:23 am

    @Kay: yet he’ll go and vote for whatever tea party schmuck is on the ballot for Congress. Boo hoo hoo for him. A lot of our farmland folk are used to getting theirs first. It’s going to sink in soon that we are not in fact the “world’s breadbasket” and lots of countries who we are pissing off right now aren’t full of starving masses who need our food. They’ve been buying our food because in every free trade agreement, we make sure that commodity crop tariffs get dropped first. It doesn’t have to be that way.

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    June 23, 2018 at 12:26 am

    @debbie:
    I see your problem.
    He has no strategy. None. He lives only in one shitty moment to the next. His big plan was to become king, after all, how hard can it be for a billionaire, a lowly black man without any fortune, ability to bullshit, lie or fuck over others did it. And he has all those valuable personal assets that the black man is missing. Easy Peasy, he says something and everyone jumps. That’s his total repertoire, his entire mental process, his skills as a human.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:27 am

    @Kay: And the ripple effects here will be huge. It won’t just be this guy’s soybean farm. It’ll be all his friends and competitors, because even if they find buyers for next year’s crop, the bulk of this year’s was going to China and Japan and South Korea and that’s not going to happen because of retaliatory tariffs. That means no new capital improvements. And likely layoffs of farm personnel who aren’t family. So no new equipment purchases. Which then forces the John Deere and Kubota dealers to cut back and layoff folks. And all of these folks with less money because their crop is now unsellable or their hours have been cut back start cutting back themselves. No dinners out. No movies. Fewer birthday and Christmas gifts. Weddings will be downsized, if not postponed. Instead of a haircut every few week, it’ll be every few months. Need new shoes, let’s see if we can’t make the current ones last another six months…

    All this is, is the economic equivalent of taking the oil out of your car’s engine, then turning it on and expecting it to run like normal. And that’s not even counting what happens if China decides to really play hardball and stop purchasing US debt as T Bills for a couple of months in addition to retaliatory tariffs. Sure, they only hold about 7 to 9% of US debt as the vast majority of it, around 3/4, is held by Americans in retirement and other investment portfolios, but if they stop maintaining that amount by stopping buying new T Bill offerings for a few months, that’s going to cause a major liquidity crisis.

  76. 76.

    remima

    June 23, 2018 at 12:27 am

    Apropos of nothing, my husband started randomly playing this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuzLdMPbKl8
    and I can’t stop crying

  77. 77.

    jl

    June 23, 2018 at 12:27 am

    Latin American Immigration to the United States
    Marta Tienda and Susana Sanchez
    Daedalus. 2013 Summer; 142(3): 48–64.

    ” The underpinnings of contemporary migration from Latin America also are rooted in policy changes designed to regulate permanent and temporary admissions, beginning with the Immigration Act of 1924. Although widely criticized for establishing a racist quota system designed to restrict migration from Southern and Eastern Europe, the 1924 Act is also relevant for contemporary Latin American immigration because it explicitly exempted from the quotas the independent countries Central and South America, including Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. ”
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4638184/
    (should be public access link, looks like they got some federal grant money to write it)

    I found a report that said there were periodic quotas on immigration from Mexico before then, but they were on and off, and when in legally in force, rarely enforced in practice.
    But I can’t find it now. I’ll go look again.

    But seems to me that the oldsters in my family were correct. No one gave a rat’s ass about Hispanic immigration until it became a convenient racist wedge issue (edit and GOP efforts to recruit Hispanics as a new GOP voting bloc flopped). A total racist con job, which is also the attitude of my oldster kin when the Wilson pulled his stunts back in the day in California.

  78. 78.

    Mnemosyne

    June 23, 2018 at 12:29 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    a lot of stuff seems to be knee jerk responses when the planned, but rooted in really bad ideology turns out badly as everyone who wasn’t delusional predicted.

    People who make decisions based in ideology have an extremely bad track record when it comes to dealing with the problems that crop up once their plan becomes reality. The Great Leap Forward comes to mind as a horrific example of what happens when an idealogue’s plans don’t go as expected and they keep plowing ahead anyway.

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:32 am

    @debbie: He didn’t have a plan. He thought that if he bullied everyone would fold, because that’s how he’s treated everyone he’s ever done business with. He has no real understanding of how trade works and no actual understanding of macro economics, which is sadly true for the vast majority of Americans. The President thinks he knows the price of everything, which he doesn’t, and doesn’t know the value of anything.

    This is how he operates:
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/how-trump-learned-to-be-a-predator

    You really don’t have to go any further than this email from a New York real estate player, who’s crossed paths with Trump, and wrote in more than a year ago to explain the predatory attack strategies Donald learned from his dad Fred way back in the day.

    We now know Trump’s modus operandi intuitively. But it helps to understand where it came from, the logic of it and how it’s succeeded for Trump again and again over decades.

    There is a personality type with a New York developer, one Donald learned from Fred when he carried his dad’s briefcase to acquisition meetings out in the boroughs and it goes like this:

    Donald contracts for a service or good, or the acquisition of a piece of land for $1 million.

    He then does not pay you

    You ask Donald for your million dollars

    Donald yells at you, basely, abusively, wholly out of character to the rich gentleman you broke bread with and made the deal with. He tells you that no, YOU owe him $200,000. Gives you no reason but screams how can you be such a son of a bitch to rip him off, how he’s going to sue you, expose you as a cheat, etc.

    You’re off your pins, defensive. How could this be the guy who was so nice when he picked up the check at Per Se?

    So, you compromise, because human nature avoids conflict, right? This is what he’s gaming you for because once you compromised, you’ve lost. You’ve inferred his premise that you have some complicity in the matter otherwise why would you compromise? You are on the defensive and will never get it back.

    You offer $750,000 as a settlement, angry but want it over and done with. He then sues you. Why, because you’ve already committed yourself to the loss. You volunteered to surrender your position and what will stop you from keeping going?

    I’ve seen many a New Yorker settle things like this with Trump people for 5-10 cents on the dollar and then happy, even eager to keep doing business with them. Why? Because he got in their heads with this aggressively counterintuitive behavior.

    The only real addition to the story is that this is a lot easier to pull off with other real estate developers than it is to powerful players in Washington, especially after they’ve seen the swindle a few times. Trump’s inability to get the same results as he’s used to with this approach is basically the story of his presidency so far.

  80. 80.

    Wapiti

    June 23, 2018 at 12:33 am

    @Adam L Silverman: speaking of the Army, I saw enough paintings/prints of Confederate generals and the like in people’s offices; I assumed they were at least latent bigots. Never thought of them as closeted racists, but it fits. I can only imagine what an African-American soldier or subordinate officer thinks when they see that on their boss’ walls.

  81. 81.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:34 am

    @Mnemosyne: I’m not sure there’s any way to know. The US government functions on paperwork. If they decided they couldn’t leave a paper trail, I’m not sure anything would have happened.

    My guess is there are a bunch of private email accounts run through a private server. Most likely set up and administered by Brad Parscale. Which would explain why Scott Pruitt has, apparently, only sent or received one email since he became EPA director.

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:41 am

    @jl: I did a whole post on this with maps a while back. Am I going to have to start giving pop quizzes?

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:41 am

    Well this is creepy…

    NEW: Trump autographed photos of deceased crime victims for today's White House 'Angel Families' event https://t.co/gNn3OuXaaG pic.twitter.com/dFD9XAu2qx

    — Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) June 22, 2018

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:42 am

    Let’s cut money from the Coast Guard, which is often the first line in interdicting drug smuggling, in order to give money to ICE to ramp up operations against people fleeing violence of drug cartels because you think they might be actually bringing drugs. GENIUS!

    A new twist: The Trump administration plans to use Coast Guard money to pay for ICE border enforcement, according to U.S. officials and an internal Coast Guard memo.https://t.co/HcTysLaEP3

    — Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) June 22, 2018

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:43 am

    He seems nice…

    Rep. Steve King, Republican of Iowa, said he doesn't want Somali Muslims working in his home district's meat-packing plants for fear that they think consumers will go "to hell for eating pork chops" https://t.co/FjN52TQEwa pic.twitter.com/semXga3rUx

    — CNN (@CNN) June 22, 2018

  86. 86.

    jl

    June 23, 2018 at 12:44 am

    @Adam L Silverman: My dog must have eaten that blog post. I’ll go look for it. It might be behind the couch or something. How long ago is ‘a while back’?

    Edit: yeesh. ‘maps’ he has ‘maps’ he says… OK OK my links don’t have any stinking maps Excuuuuse meee…

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:45 am

    @jl: Here you go!
    https://balloon-juice.com/2016/08/24/lines-on-the-map-the-human-geography-of-the-uss-southern-border/

  88. 88.

    Peale

    June 23, 2018 at 12:48 am

    @jl: when RAICES and the CLU put out calls for help with indigenous language translation, I was reminded that this wasn’t the first time these asylum seekers from Central America were denied due process to get their cases heard. I guess one could kind of excuse the Reagan administration for not wanting to admit that non-communist Salvador and Guatemala had become prison slave labor camps. Kind of. Cold War thinking. But Jesus, what excuse do we have this time?

  89. 89.

    opiejeanne

    June 23, 2018 at 12:48 am

    @NotMax: Rachel talked to the priest near the Brownsville (I think) facility a week ago, and he said the boys seemed to enjoy their outings to attend church, and so did the girls until they were moved somewhere else, he didn’t know where, and now he doesn’t see the girls any more. That was the point that some of us sat up straight and said, “Where are the girls???”

  90. 90.

    LosGatosCA

    June 23, 2018 at 12:49 am

    But I heard he passed the driving test because his parking skills were unparalleled.

  91. 91.

    ruemara

    June 23, 2018 at 12:51 am

    That is all the luck that person is allowed to have in their lifetime.

  92. 92.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    June 23, 2018 at 12:51 am

    @Adam L Silverman: when will he start signing the portraits of kids he’s orphaned? Oh right, no pictures available. Demented old bigot. All these people need cages of their own. Put them behind glass in a tent otherwise exposed to the elements with no drainage and apple slices for sustenance while little brown children from all over the world stare at them through glass in climate controlled comfort. Daily raffle winner gets to throw rolls of paper towels at them.

  93. 93.

    jl

    June 23, 2018 at 12:52 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks very much. Excellent post, and I’ll read the links. Beautiful maps.
    If you do put Ronnie and GH up there at the top of the blog, encouraging depraved infestation of the country, maybe should be a link to that post as well?

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 12:52 am

    @Mnemosyne:
    http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/25130-rtfm

  95. 95.

    Millard Filmore

    June 23, 2018 at 12:53 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    My guess is there are a bunch of private email accounts run through a private server. Most likely set up and administered by Brad Parscale. Which would explain why Scott Pruitt has, apparently, only sent or received one email since he became EPA director.

    Wow! How far down the Republican leadership would one have to go to NOT know what is going on? And how tightly would they have to close their eyes?

    When this shit really hits the fan it will decapitate the party.

  96. 96.

    SectionH

    June 23, 2018 at 12:53 am

    @Adam L Silverman: that’s actually kind of sad. Barton’s – I’m told, cause I srsly don’t like anything resembling whisky (yeah, with an “e” too, or spelled Bourbon or Rye…). But Bartons does some smoooooth Bourbon, so say my friends who know from.

  97. 97.

    jl

    June 23, 2018 at 12:55 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, I’ve been down to Simi Valley a lot. Starting to think like those folks down there.

  98. 98.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    June 23, 2018 at 12:57 am

    @Mnemosyne:
    Does incompetence really matter when it comes to crimes against humanity?

  99. 99.

    jl

    June 23, 2018 at 12:58 am

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Might be helpful to bring up during the sentencing phase.

  100. 100.

    Peale

    June 23, 2018 at 1:02 am

    @Adam L Silverman: on the plus side, those meat packers will eventually need to move where their labor is. Probably into one of those counties where the Mexicans settled many generations ago.

  101. 101.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 1:03 am

    @Adam L Silverman: What I don’t understand is why did folk in New York real estate(or anyone else) continue to do business with Trump. They all knew his MO.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:04 am

    @Wapiti: Since I have no idea where you saw this, I can’t say much. I know at USAWC there was a lot of Civil War art, which makes sense given how close Carlisle Barracks is to Gettysburg. And that USAWC included the Army Heritage Education Center. Some of this did include some of Confederate generals. There was one seminar room named for Lee and one for Stonewall. And there is a building named for Anne Elly, who was one of Lee’s granddaughters. In general, however, there was just a lot of war porn art on the walls. Almost every graduating class gifted the school a painting of a famous battle. And that stuff has to get displayed somewhere.

  103. 103.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    June 23, 2018 at 1:05 am

    @Peale: Trump’s position seems to be that nonwhite immigrants aren’t really people, at least the way he puts it on the twitters. Confronting that in a way that makes him pay for it will be up to regular people, because the national political press will go out of their way not to.

  104. 104.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:06 am

    @LosGatosCA: Well played!

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:09 am

    @jl: Makes sense.

    I will submit your suggestion to the Elders for consideration during new business at the next meeting…//

  106. 106.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    June 23, 2018 at 1:10 am

    @ruemara: he used up his luck and everyone else’s at that station that didn’t end up in a fireball

  107. 107.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:10 am

    @SectionH:

    No worries Rick. We lost part of the 9,000 barrel warehouse.. a lot of the barrels survived. Besides, we have 6.7 million more barrels stashed.

    We good.

    — Kentucky Spirits (@KentuckySpirits) June 23, 2018

  108. 108.

    Mart

    June 23, 2018 at 1:13 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Obama was way to the right of those two snowflakes. I am between the two, easy work access and after three to five years pathway to citizenship or go home. This clip is going to all my fascist friends. I wonder if they would report a guy to the authorities who basically (on some issues) would have loved for Obama to have R majorities that would let him govern like Raygun with D minorities.

  109. 109.

    Yarrow

    June 23, 2018 at 1:13 am

    @Mnemosyne: @Adam L Silverman: They may not be leaving the usual paper trail, but they’re terrible about using actual secure phones. It’s likely that anyone who wants to know can find out what they’ve been up to.

  110. 110.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:14 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: He was the Italian mob’s laundry and when those guys got largely put out of business, the Russian mob’s laundry. And at one point in time, ran a good con.
    http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/wayne-barrett-donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-peas-pod-article-1.2776357

    Rudy and Donald first got together in the late 1980s shortly before Donald became a co-chair of Giuliani’s first fundraiser for his 1989 mayoral campaign, sitting on the Waldorf dais and steering $41,000 to the campaign. A year earlier, Tony Lombardi, the federal agent closest to then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, opened a probe of Trump’s role in the suspect sale of two Trump Tower apartments to Robert Hopkins, the mob-connected head of the city’s largest gambling ring.

    Trump attended the closing himself and Hopkins arrived with a briefcase loaded with up to $200,000 in cash, a deposit the soon-to-felon counted at the table. Despite Hopkins’ wholesale lack of verifiable income or assets, he got a loan from a Jersey bank that did business with Trump’s casino. A Trump limo delivered the cash to the bank.

    The government subsequently nailed Hopkins’ mortgage broker, Frank LaMagra, on an unrelated charge and he offered to give up Donald, claiming Trump “participated” in the money-laundering — and volunteering to wear a wire on him.

    Instead, Lombardi, who discussed the case with Giuliani personally (and with me for a 1993 Village Voice piece called “The Case of the Missing Case”), went straight to Donald for two hour-long interviews with him. Within weeks of the interviews, Donald announced he’d raise $2 million in a half hour if Rudy ran for mayor. Lamagra got no deal and was convicted, as was his mob associate, Louis (Louie HaHa) Attanasio, who was later also nailed for seven underworld murders. Hopkins was convicted of running his gambling operation partly out of the Trump Tower apartment, where he was arrested.

    Lombardi — who expected a top appointment in a Giuliani mayoralty, conducted several other probes directly tied to Giuliani political opponents, and testified later that “every day I came to work I went to Mr. Giuliani to seek out what duties I needed to perform” — closed the Trump investigation without even giving it a case number. That meant that New Jersey gaming authorities would never know it existed.

  111. 111.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:15 am

    It appears The Jester has been busy!

    https://t.co/dd1kmIqSgd ?

    — JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³º¹ (@th3j35t3r) June 23, 2018

    http://www.trumphotels.org/

  112. 112.

    jl

    June 23, 2018 at 1:16 am

    @Adam L Silverman: OK then. At least I got you a couple of good references!

  113. 113.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:17 am

    @Mart: I do not know.

  114. 114.

    NotMax

    June 23, 2018 at 1:20 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Because he’sperceived as both a celebrity and a Big Wheel. The perceived cost of shunning him is higher than the cost of doing business.

    As in the case of Wall Street (*cough* Madoff *cough*), so in high end real estate perception is nine-tenths of the law.

  115. 115.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 1:22 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks, I remembered the story about Rudy. The mob can be very effective at “behavior modification”.

  116. 116.

    sukabi

    June 23, 2018 at 1:22 am

    @lamh36: Lol…learned new ways to conjugate ‘fuck’, along with some brand new swears.????

  117. 117.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 1:23 am

    @jl: Sorry to hear that, you should head over the pass to the Conejo Valley. It’s much nicer.

  118. 118.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:24 am

    @Yarrow: I guarantee that any non official US government unclassified email that they’re using is known to the Special Counsel.

  119. 119.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 1:25 am

    @NotMax: This behavior goes back to Fred, it’s learned behavior by Donald.

  120. 120.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:27 am

    @jl: I was teasing. It is a good idea.

  121. 121.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 1:27 am

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve been informed that there’s no greater crime than using a private email server for even unclassified email.

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    June 23, 2018 at 1:27 am

    Dayumn, that’s one hellova car wreck to walk away from. If David Koch had had his way when running for VP, the driver would have been mooshed like gawd intended.

    We oppose all so-called “consumer protection” legislation which infringes upon voluntary trade, and call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We advocate the repeal of all laws banning or restricting the advertising of prices, products, or services. We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called “self-protection” equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.

    Ah, libertarians. BTW, here’s the 1980 party stance on immigration.

    We hold that human rights should not be denied or abridged on the basis of nationality. We condemn massive roundups of Hispanic-Americans and others by the federal government in its hunt for individuals not possessing required government documents. Undocumented non-citizens should not be denied the fundamental freedom to labor and to move about unmolested. Furthermore, immigration mus not be restricted for reasons of race, religious or political creed, or sexual preference.

    We therefore call for the elimination of all restriction on immigration, the abolition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, and a declaration of full amnesty for those people who have entered the country illegally. We oppose government welfare payments to non-citizens just as we oppose government welfare payments to all other persons. We welcome Indochinese and other refugees to our shores, and condemn the efforts of U.S. government officials to induce Indochinese governments to create a new “Berlin wall” that would keep them captive.

    Who’d-a thunk?

  123. 123.

    NotMax

    June 23, 2018 at 1:28 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    Fred was an ass, but also a big fish in a relatively small pond. He steered clear of Manhattan.

    By most accounts, Dolt 45’s dead brother and also brother Robert was/is nowhere near as warped as he is.

  124. 124.

    sukabi

    June 23, 2018 at 1:28 am

    @Litlebritdifrnt: number of people killed by illegal immigrants vs. Number of people killed by white people…broken down by group…white supremacist, self identified Nazi, right to lifer, kkk, militia member, nra member, ECT.

  125. 125.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    June 23, 2018 at 1:29 am

    @jl:
    Heh. The Trumpster defense: “I was too incompetent to commit crimes against humanity!”

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:30 am

    @NotMax: Not sure what you had done to that comment’s formatting, but I fixed it for you.

  127. 127.

    frosty

    June 23, 2018 at 1:30 am

    @Ruckus:

    to put it politely as possible a massive clusterfuck, a cock up of epic proportions

    Close, but it’s more like a new word I learned this week on Balloon Juice. It’s not a clusterfuck, it’s a goat rodeo.

  128. 128.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 1:30 am

    @trollhattan:

    We welcome Indochinese

    I guess they liked their nails looking nice.

  129. 129.

    Yarrow

    June 23, 2018 at 1:31 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Yep. They think they’re smart but they’re not. They’ve made so many dumb errors already.

    @Millard Filmore:

    When this shit really hits the fan it will decapitate the party.

    It will. The entire top Republican leadership is guilty. They’re a criminal enterprise. RICO.

  130. 130.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:31 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I may have heard something about that.

  131. 131.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:32 am

    @trollhattan: It is a strange mashup of stuff that is neither internally nor externally consistent.

  132. 132.

    NotMax

    June 23, 2018 at 1:32 am

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Thanks. Inadvertantly left out a necessary bracket. Never have had access to edit function.

  133. 133.

    Mart

    June 23, 2018 at 1:33 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Thinking about it, most Jackals are probably
    already on a list.

  134. 134.

    sukabi

    June 23, 2018 at 1:34 am

    @Mary G: have you seen any other reporting on this?
    do they suspect fracking is to blame for the contamination? Or is the military still dumping excess fuel and crap back in their training fields?

  135. 135.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:35 am

    @NotMax: Every biography recounts the story of a three or four year old Donald standing at the property line throwing rocks at his neighbor’s baby, who was in the neighbor’s yard in a playpen. Psychopath. When he became too big to be handled by being emotionally and physically manipulated, and my guess is smacked around, by his parents, they packed him off to military school.

  136. 136.

    NotMax

    June 23, 2018 at 1:37 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    “I tell you everyt’ing.”

    :)

  137. 137.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 1:38 am

    @NotMax: I don’t know much about Robert, but Fred Jr. really didn’t want anything to do with the business. Donald did and as Josh noted, accompanied his dad to business meetings. Dolt45 has said that he didn’t need to study at Penn because he learned everything from his father.

  138. 138.

    Yarrow

    June 23, 2018 at 1:40 am

    @Adam L Silverman: A narcissist who is also a psychopath. Not the kind of person you want running the country.

  139. 139.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    June 23, 2018 at 1:43 am

    @Yarrow:
    I’m glad you can see a light at the end of this dark tunnel. I always enjoy reading your takes.

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    June 23, 2018 at 1:44 am

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Not just any military school, either. One known as a dumping ground for the incorrigible, unruly and unstable.

  141. 141.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:45 am

    @Yarrow: What could go wrong?

  142. 142.

    sukabi

    June 23, 2018 at 1:45 am

    @jl: he’s not. Kelley was talking about this when he was head of Homeland Security.

  143. 143.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 1:47 am

    @NotMax: Yep.

  144. 144.

    NotMax

    June 23, 2018 at 1:48 am

    Whew. Age tells. Lifting a pan with six pounds (before roasting) of meat from the oven just now felt like hefting fifty.

  145. 145.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    June 23, 2018 at 1:53 am

    @Adam L Silverman:
    What a disgusting man. I still can’t understand what so many see in the man. Why they cling to him so tightly and forcefully in the face of all contrary evidence. I know why. His base is the kind of people who exist everywhere. The kind that need to be told what to do and to blame someone else for their failures in life. They disgust me.

    That’s why earlier today I hated that companies were stockpiling supplies in anticipation of the tariffs. I want them to be punished. I want them to feel at least some of the pain and misery they’ve inflicted on everyone else by voting for Donald Trump.

  146. 146.

    Groucho48

    June 23, 2018 at 1:56 am

    Seems to be an open thread. I was downtown at my regular bar. Talked to the bartenders about maybe having a fundraiser for the ACLU or RAISA or any worthwhile group that was trying to deal with the abomination going on at the border. They were very receptive. The folks around me were enthusiastic. Went to another of my regular spots. The guys I know weren’t working, but, I mentioned the topic to the ones working. Some interest. The bouncers were folks of color and I chatted with them. They were in favor.

    So, anyway, if you guys have regular bars/restaurants/hangouts talk to them. At least in blue Buffalo, folks want to do something.

  147. 147.

    ruemara

    June 23, 2018 at 1:59 am

    Vinnie Paul of Pantera has died. I guess I have to get used to this.

  148. 148.

    sgrAstar

    June 23, 2018 at 2:03 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Adam, I’m wondering if you can weigh in on the proposed Navy tent cities that are intended to hold > 100k people. Where are these people coming from? Are they locking up every person that crosses the border? Every person picked up by ICE? I am….concerned. ?

  149. 149.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 2:03 am

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    That’s why earlier today I hated that companies were stockpiling supplies in anticipation of the tariffs. I want them to be punished. I want them to feel at least some of the pain and misery they’ve inflicted on everyone else by voting for Donald Trump.

    That’s what companies should do, it’s their managers fiduciary duty to do so. They be fired if they didn’t. There are, however, limits to how much they can stockpile and maintaining stockpiles are not without costs.

  150. 150.

    NotMax

    June 23, 2018 at 2:04 am

    @ruemara

    No idea who he is or what (aside from the chi-chi car) Pantera refers to.

  151. 151.

    afanasia

    June 23, 2018 at 2:06 am

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Brundibar is illustrated by Maurice Sendak – it’s based on a libretto of the opera that was performed by the children held captive in Terezin.

  152. 152.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    June 23, 2018 at 2:08 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    I understand in more normal times that that’s their duty. But these aren’t normal times. I guess I can understand that businesses don’t have much choice. I really just want to see Trump voters hurt so this nightmare can begin to end.

  153. 153.

    Jager

    June 23, 2018 at 2:09 am

    @Groucho48:

    We donated a couple of hundred bucks to RAISA tonight, Mrs J posted it on her facebook page and challenged her friends/business associates to donate. Her page lit up like a pinball machine, she had 35 likes in a couple of minutes. She shut her laptop off after about 30 minutes so we could eat dinner, at that point she was over 100.

  154. 154.

    Chet Murthy

    June 23, 2018 at 2:23 am

    @lamh36: Righteous. I worked with @jack when Twitter was a 12-person company [no, I didn’t work -for- Twitter, so no $$, sigh]. I haven’t emailed him, mostly b/c I’m not eloquent, and I know that I would only have -one- chance to get a message across.

    But I’ve thought about it a -lot-.

  155. 155.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 2:38 am

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I may have understated that; it’s not just a duty, it’s a legal responsibility. Corporate executives can be sued for not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. The can, of course, try to convince shareholders that doing differently would be a good idea.

    ETA: BTW Adam, it was a Mississippi woman.

    Charging up my sky tracker and trying to get out for one last shoot for this month. This past week has been a fight with the weather.

  156. 156.

    piratedan

    June 23, 2018 at 2:39 am

    @Yarrow: well, if incompetence is to be used as a “defense” they’ve already established that they couldn’t organize an orgy after being spotted a whorehouse and a naval base, based on their response and actions (and lack thereof) in Puerto Rico.

    These guys seem to think if there’s no documentation, then they’re “clean” without understanding that if you’re in charge, no one gives a fuck if there’s any documentation, its on your fucking watch, therefore you own it. Rapidly reaching the point whereupon if/when they’re arrested for their multitude of crimes that we find them a ditch somewhere and leave them in it rather than spend our tax dollars feeding them for the rest of their lives, problem with that is that Rupert and the Sinclair empire would gleefully turn them into martyrs. I hope that when Mueller is done, all of the dark money gets tracked to all of its nefarious hidey holes and we find out just how much of our 4th estate is currently being bankrolled by Vlad and his ilk.

  157. 157.

    Ruckus

    June 23, 2018 at 2:45 am

    @frosty:
    Any number of things can describe this situation.
    Goat Rodeo
    Clusterfuck
    Cock up
    Fucking Disaster
    Etc, Etc.
    Considering the size and degree it would be wise to combine them for a better overall effect.
    So…. A Cocked Up Goat Rodeo Massive Clusterfuck, on a never seen and unparalleled level.

  158. 158.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2018 at 3:19 am

    @Ruckus: I’d never heard the term ‘clusterfuck’ until about 20 years ago. I was out having a smoke(and freezing my ass off since it was Alaska in the Winter) and one of the attorneys was out there too. He had been an Air Force JAG, and used the term to describe a situation with the computers in the office. I’ve kept it in my lexicon ever since.

  159. 159.

    Fair Economist

    June 23, 2018 at 3:25 am

    @Yarrow:

    The entire top Republican leadership is guilty. They’re a criminal enterprise. RICO.

    What Senators are going to Russia? We know every one is in on it one way or another.

  160. 160.

    J R in WV

    June 23, 2018 at 3:39 am

    This is cross posted with EmptyWheel, where I originally wrote this about the only way to have real evidence about the young captives, females, toddlers and babies kidnapped and in illegal captivity:

    The only way to learn what is going on with the female captives and the infant/toddler captives is for some brave member of an administration, like a top prosecuting attorney or governor to work with a high level judge, like the senior state supreme court justice, to obtain a search warrant based upon the information and belief that child abuse of an intolerable and illegal level is being systematically conducted in certain facilities, to wit:

    Facility one, located at:
    managed by: DHHR
    listing: known or suspected details about this facility

    Facility two, located at:
    managed by: contract firm ABC
    listing: known or suspected details about this facility

    Etc.

    Then to obtain confidentially the enthusiastic services of a LEO, preferably with SWAT teams and vehicles or aircraft sufficient to make forced entry to all facilities noted above, along with camera crews designated to preserve information as these raids are conducted, so as to minimize panic among the captives and maximize it among the captors. Teams to include medical and psychological teams prepared to take control of the well being of the captors and to preserve evidence of the condition of the captives at the time of their liberation.

    Then to execute forced entry to all the identified facilities while suppressing communications capability from those facilities while control is established over the captors sufficient to put them under arrest for receiving and holding kidnapped and abused children and infants while not advising the proper authorities as required by law.

    Any suspected facilities of the type being planned to be opened and taken into control of the proper authorities should be under complete surveillance during the time while preparations are being made to rescue the children being held captive, and if all such facilities are not to be opened simultaneously, those not scheduled for immediate entry should be under heightened surveillance until they can be taken under control.

    Obviously taking control of all these facilities at once will be a huge challenge, yet doing it a few at a time allows the perpetrators to begin to conceal ongoing crimes and to attack victims being held prisoner. Treating the rescued prisoners, identifying them, associating them with their parents, collecting evidence of crimes committed against them will be a superhuman effort requiring huge teams to be brought together to conduct medical evaluations of all the victims to determine if additional crimes have been committed in addition to the kidnapping and illegal movement.

    Records showing the numbers and ID of the captives and arrivals and departures will have to be carefully collected and evaluated to determine how many children should have been present at each facility, and any discrepancy in the numbers should be investigated for possible illegal transfers of children into different illegal hands.

    Menus and documentary evidence as to the type and amount of food and water each captive was provided and how much of that which was provided was consumed. If there is no evidence of how much food and water was consumed by a specific individual, it mush be assumed the captors did not care how much food intake was going on, that’s evidence of another crime, failing to document food intake indicated they didn’t care if malnutrition was going to be a problem for the captives.

    IANAL nor an I associated with law enforcement, so I have no doubt omitted many necessary tasks — but a search warrant and entry teams are the first thing to organize, those professionals should be able to develop an operational plan intended to rescue the captives and preserve the evidence of their treatment, good and bad. Medical exams of all the captives, postmortems of those not still alive at the time of entry. Yes, we all know that at least a few children in these terrible circumstances may have died under the best and luckiest circumstances, which will not be the kind of circumstances I expect to find.

    Some facilities may be managed properly while others are not. All facilities will have cooperated with the holding of captives after their kidnapping. Some facilities may have captives who have been further abused after being illegally taken from their families. Arrest for every captor in the facilities should be a given, the actual charges in addition to being an accomplice to kidnapping will depend upon the condition of the captives and the documentary, physical, medical, and asurveillance data and interviews with staff, victims and witnesses.

    Without this kind of immediate investigation we will never know what happened to the children being held captive in violation of child care requirements all over the world. We owe it to the parents and families of the captive children AND to the international community to discover what has happened to the captive children in as much detail and with as much certainty as possible, in order to provide evidence sufficient to indict and convict those guilty of misconduct with regard to these children. Including those at the top of management of this whole Cluster Fuck, who allowed this policy change to go forward with virtually no planning to keep these children in good condition and properly identified.

  161. 161.

    Millard Filmore

    June 23, 2018 at 3:52 am

    @J R in WV: Many people are involved in this. Strictly as a practical matter, there will be leaks.

  162. 162.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    June 23, 2018 at 4:07 am

    Question for the morning crew (when they arrive) I just read this twitter thread about what the administration’s plans are for the Federal Government

    https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1010205853985792000

    The one thing that was glaring to me was the privatization of USPS. Isn’t that unconstitutional? I was under the impression that a postal service is one of the few governmental responsibilities which is actually laid out in the constitution. The rest of them have come through legislation (taxation etc.,). Anyhoo, just wondering what the jackals think about their “proposals”

  163. 163.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 4:33 am

    @sgrAstar: I have no idea. I’ve seen the reporting from Time that has their hands on the memo. I’ve also seen the official DOD statement, which is they have not been formally asked to help by DOJ, DHS, and/or HHS and are simply doing contingency planning in case they need to assist as they did in the past when there were surges in undocumented immigrants that needed to be held for short periods while they were processed into the system. I honestly have no idea who in the administration thinks there are 150,000 or so undocumented entries that need to be detained indefinitely.

  164. 164.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 4:34 am

    @afanasia: One of those children was my cantor when I was growing up.

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 4:42 am

    @J R in WV: Andrew Cuomo. Regardless of what you think of him, and I don’t like him on most days, on stuff like this he tends to be reliable.
    https://nypost.com/2018/06/22/cuomo-wants-names-of-migrant-children-in-new-york-foster-care/

    Gov. Andrew Cuomo has demanded that state-licensed foster care agencies hand over the names of children taken from their parents at the southern border in their care — and threatening legal action to get the data.

    “There are facilities the state regulates and they won’t even tell me,” Cuomo said on NY1 Friday.

    Sheila Poole, acting commissioner of the state Office of Children and Family Services, sent a letter Thursday to all social service providers requesting the names and ages of children they received from the federal Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    The letter also requests the names of their parents and the date and location of their separation.

    “You should consider this request the equivalent of a subpoena for such records under our authority,” Poole said.

    “Failure to respond timely to this request may result in the state’s suspension, revocation or limitation of your residential program’s operating certificate; the withdrawal of approval of your program’s authority to board out children; and/or the referral of the matter for criminal prosecution,” Poole warned in the letter, first obtained by Telemundo47.

    The letter also requests copies of contracts the providers have with the federal government.

    Cuomo complained that federal immigration officials won’t share the information — so his administration is putting the not-for-profit agencies on the spot.

    “We regulate the facilities and we have a right to inspect these facilities and find out who’s there,” Cuomo said.

    He said as many as 700 kids are housed in New York facilities.

    He’s also suing DHS/HHS over this stuff. Sent HHS Secretary Azar this lovely letter:

    .@SecAzar, New York needs to know: How many immigrant children are being housed in our state? Where are they?

    The health and safety of these children are at stake, and it is imperative that you provide this information without delay. pic.twitter.com/X7fXZ1jwz1

    — Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 21, 2018

  166. 166.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 23, 2018 at 4:45 am

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Privatizing the Census Bureau certainly would be. Regardless, here’s my response in my comment 68 on this to someone else;

    It’s like the plan Mulvaney just rolled out to basically privatize a significant amount of the Federal government and consolidate the rest. There is definitely redundancy, but that’s not what they’re after resolving here. They just want to remake the US along the governing principals of the Confederacy. Remember, the Confederate constitution had no promote the general welfare clause. It was the one clause they purposefully chose not to copy from the US constitution. But the fallout on this is going to be 100s of thousands of people who work for the Federal government directly placed out of work. Because of cuts to R&D and research budgets it will put millions more out of work and seriously damage future American economic prospects because the private sector, by and large, does not and will not invest in that type of primary, expensive, but often not immediately profitable R&D. While I doubt that almost any of this will get through Congress, for a variety of reasons, if it did, it would completely destroy the US economy in very short order. Like leave the Great Recession in the mirror and proceed directly to full on depression.

  167. 167.

    Groucho48

    June 23, 2018 at 5:31 am

    @Jager:

    That’s great! I hope more folks follow your example and my example. I get the sense there are lots of folks out there that would like to help, but, are more likely to if someone they know shows the way.

  168. 168.

    Anonymous At Work

    June 23, 2018 at 7:47 am

    Ha Ha Ha! Joke’s on him. The gas tank is on the other side.

  169. 169.

    randy khan

    June 23, 2018 at 8:11 am

    @Barbara:

    Obviously the two aren’t really that connected, but at least around me and in New York there’s a new effort to work on the pedestrian issue, through changes in the street scape and awareness campaigns. (Fun fact: In New York City the average time between when the light turns red and people start to cross the street is a negative number – people actually start to cross before the light turns red.)

  170. 170.

    Brachiator

    June 23, 2018 at 10:45 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    My estimation of this is that the President and his advisors think that if they push this off on the military everyone will shut up because of the high regard that the military is held within US society.

    I think you are right on the money about this. Classic appeal to the reflexive love of authority that many people have.

    I think you are also right that this will backfire on Trump and also badly injure the military’s reputation.

    Also, it’s funny how it turns out that right wing dopes are all for FEMA camps for other people.

  171. 171.

    sigyn

    June 23, 2018 at 12:24 pm

    @The Dangerman: Shit, why not San Clemente island (if memory serves, it’s mostly one big live fire range)?

    Dear God, don’t give them any ideas!

  172. 172.

    sigyn

    June 23, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I’d go look for the numbers of Muslims working in pork-packing plants, but I’ve already had my exercise in futility for today.

  173. 173.

    Zinsky

    June 23, 2018 at 7:39 pm

    I’m guessing three things about the inbred cretin driving that vehicle: (1) He was male. (2) If he voted at all, he was a Trump supporter, and (3) The last words he spoke before this stunt was, “Watch this…”.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - Winter Wren - North of Quebec City (part 2 of 3) - Cap Tourmente and on the way to Tadoussac 2
Image by Winter Wren (5/13/25)

Recent Comments

  • Manyakitty on Tuesday Evening Open Thread (May 14, 2025 @ 1:52am)
  • Old Man Yelling at Clouds on Monday Morning Open Thread: Another Suggestion (May 14, 2025 @ 1:36am)
  • Jay on News of the Weird Open Thread (May 14, 2025 @ 1:35am)
  • Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom on War for Ukraine Day 1,174: More Drone Swarms in the Small Hours of the Night (May 14, 2025 @ 1:19am)
  • AlaskaReader on War for Ukraine Day 1,174: More Drone Swarms in the Small Hours of the Night (May 14, 2025 @ 12:47am)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!